Given how Cursed Vex is massively overtuned (Wendy's potion that can give her Wolfgang damage), why would anyone ever go for Lunar Affinity?

[Dingle]

Cursed Vex is a new super elixir you can get from Wendy's Shadow Affinity. It's currently so overtuned and powerful that, by itself, I think it may make Lunar Affinity pointless.

Cursed Vex gives Wendy on a beefalo a 2.24x damage modifier, compared to Wolfgang's usual damage modifier of 2x.

If you are not using a beefalo, it is still an enormous damage increase. Off top of head, it lets Wendy with a dark sword hit for over 100. 

Cursed Vex only takes 1 pure horror and 3 mourning glory to make. Pure horror is essentially free now post rift, there's so many ways to get it now. It's much more easy to get than the Lunar equivalent, unless you have both Wickerbottom and Wilson and have moonstorms open.

You can easily get Cursed Vex pre rift due to it just taking pure horror. You can get 4 to 6 of them, more if you use green gems, before opening cave rifts. This is solo. If you have a shadow glasses Winona, you can use it pre rift on every boss, anyway.

Given the power and easy attainability of Cursed Vex, why go for Lunar Affinity? Going Lunar means you lose access to the most overtuned thing that Wendy has. This is even ignoring the power of the Murder buff for Shadow Abby.

You can compare the entirety of Lunar Sisterhood to just Cursed Vex, and even then I think most people would throw Lunar into the garbage if it means losing Vex. I think most people have, already.

[Lardee]

This topic is becoming the new Blessed Sisturn III where there are multiple threads essentially saying the same thing and the main argument makes an apples to orange comparison.

It's no different than the arguments that said Abigail's survivability should be buffed because look at how durable Bernie is.

 

[Well-met]

back to the board, another month of development for wendys refresh

[Dingle]

1 minute ago, Lardee said:

This topic is becoming the new Blessed Sisturn III where there are multiple threads essentially saying the same thing and the main argument makes an apples to orange comparison.

It's no different than the arguments that said Abigail's survivability should be buffed because look at how durable Bernie is.

 

There's more than one facet to the discussion, though.

I was inspired to make this from a thread about beefalo. This is mostly about comparing Cursed Vex with lunar.

What do you think about Lunar affinity? Would you ever get it, considering it prevents you from getting Cursed Vex? If so, why?

[Lardee]

7 minutes ago, Dingle said:

There's more than one facet to the discussion, though.

I was inspired to make this from a thread about beefalo. This is mostly about comparing Cursed Vex with lunar.

What do you think about Lunar affinity? Would you ever get it, considering it prevents you from getting Cursed Vex? If so, why?

I would get the Lunar affinity if I want the more survivable Gestalt Abigail or if I wanted a low maintenance increase to Abigail's damage.

I would get the Shadow affinity if I want to trade survivability for higher offense that required me to be more involved in combat.

[Dingle]

10 minutes ago, Lardee said:

I would get the Lunar affinity if I want the more survivable Gestalt Abigail or if I wanted a low maintenance increase to Abigail's damage.

I would get the Shadow affinity if I want to trade survivability for higher offense that required me to be more involved in combat.

The trade you're describing doesn't really exist, from what I've seen on the forum. Some exceptions, but if you're willing to be more involved in combat and get the team spirit commands, Shadow is more survivable than Gestalt.

In any case, the gain in survival in some cases doesn't seem to justify the loss of Cursed Vex.

I'm pretty sure you know this already though.

Would you seriously get Lunar, ever, knowing what you know? If you're really claiming to be serious here, I'm willing to play along, I guess.

[Lardee]

7 minutes ago, Dingle said:

The trade you're describing doesn't really exist, from what I've seen on the forum. Some exceptions, but if you're willing to be more involved in combat and get the team spirit commands, Shadow is more survivable than Gestalt.

In any case, the gain in survival in some cases doesn't seem to justify the loss of Cursed Vex.

I'm pretty sure you know this already though.

Would you seriously get Lunar, ever, knowing what you know? If you're really claiming to be serious here, I'm willing to play along, I guess.

The trade will most likely not exist for people like me who want to boss rush and are willing to invest the time it takes to learn how to play Wendy at her max potential other than perhaps new bosses that I have not gotten familiar with. But that's just one playstyle.

 

The trade will exist for people who do not want to play Wendy that way or are in the process of learning how to keep Abigail alive against the stronger threats.

 

[Debruh]

I don't think that problem exists only due to cursed vex.

I think most people are going with shadow over due to just.. how bad gestalt Abby is tbh.

Her AI fails at what it's trying to do.

She's supposed to be good in situations normal Abby isn't. But those situations aren't common at all. And even then, she's barely better than normal Abby.

Beginners aren't gonna choose her because she lacks the aoe that makes Abby good at utility. (As well as the fact that she's locked behind CC)

Everybody else isn't gonna choose her, even without the dps of the shadow side, because it's better to just learn how to do Abby with team spirits and elixirs, and keep her utility.

But um yeah, hope they change cursed vex to be more like Walter's pure brilliance rounds or smth. And change both to not need planar damage to get theit effect, pls.

[Dingle]

18 minutes ago, Lardee said:

The trade will most likely not exist for people like me who want to boss rush and are willing to invest the time it takes to learn how to play Wendy at her max potential other than perhaps new bosses that I have not gotten familiar with. But that's just one playstyle.

The trade will exist for people who do not want to play Wendy that way or are in the process of learning how to keep Abigail alive against the stronger threats.

 

Fair enough. Though I think if Lunar is supposed to be the "beginner Wendy" tree, then it really needs something. That and it's flipped... the "beginner Wendy" tree doesn't make sense because it means that the beginners NEVER learn how to really play Wendy (keeping Abby alive, etc).

It would probably make more sense if Lunar got Cursed Vex, instead? That way it's more of a "support" playstyle. Shadow gets the best of all worlds, if you're willing to learn how to play Wendy.

That and the whole "need to kill Celestial Champion once to unlock the more newcomer friendly option" thing lol, but there's ways around that.

[Yifei_]

I think that for the current Lunar Sisterhood, the reason no one is willing to choose it is not because the Shadow Sisterhood is too strong, but because the Lunar Sisterhood itself has significant design issues. Whether Cursed Vexation needs to be adjusted is debatable, but I don't think it's appropriate to use this comparison as an argument.

 

[Lardee]

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Fair enough. Though I think if Lunar is supposed to be the "beginner Wendy" tree, then it really needs something. That and it's flipped... the "beginner Wendy" tree doesn't make sense because it means that the beginners NEVER learn how to really play Wendy (keeping Abby alive, etc).

I don't think this is true. Gestalt Abigail still gets hit and Gestalt Abigail can access AoE via team spirit skills. This incentivizes the player to learn team spirit which they can later use if they transition over to regular Abigail.

Plus, just getting used to fighting bosses in general will increase your ability to keep regular Abigail alive.

 

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

It would probably make more sense if Lunar got Cursed Vex, instead? That way it's more of a "support" playstyle. Shadow gets the best of all worlds, if you're willing to learn how to play Wendy.

No, because what's the incentive to learn how to manage regular Abigail's survivability if you get the highest offense and highest defense in one form? The incentive to learn how to get really good at managing a frailer Abigail is the Cursed Vex. Without the carrot (Cursed Vex), there's no reason to learn Abigail to that extent other than style points.

5 minutes ago, Dingle said:

That and the whole "need to kill Celestial Champion once to unlock the more newcomer friendly option" thing lol, but there's ways around that.

Yeah.

[Yifei_]

Just now, Lardee said:

Gestalt Abigail can access AoE via team spirit skills.

After last update, the aoe of Lunar Abigail in team spirit skills has been removed.

 

[Lardee]

11 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

After last update, the aoe of Lunar Abigail in team spirit skills has been removed.

 

That's a shame, the AoE would have been a great design choice.  Incentivizing the player to use the "attack at" for AoE not only functioned as a way for them to get better at controlling Abigail, but it also made Gestalt Abigail gameplay a lot more unique and engaging.

[AliceShiki]

Tbh, I think the only problem with Lunar Abigail is that... Well, it's Lunar Abigail, so it requires you to have beaten CC at least once in your account.

If you're good enough to beat CC, then you probably don't care about any of the upsides of Lunar Abigail because you're good enough at the game to simply realize that Shadow Abigail is simply better.

Lunar Abigail is a good newbie-friendly option, but it's locked behind a super late-game boss that no new player is ever going to face until they are good enough at the game to not need Lunar Abigail's newbie-friendliness anymore.

It just feels like flawed design to me. And I can't think of any solution that is realistic when considering how late into the development timeline this beta already is.

[Koomin]

11 minutes ago, AliceShiki said:

Tbh, I think the only problem with Lunar Abigail is that... Well, it's Lunar Abigail, so it requires you to have beaten CC at least once in your account.

If you're good enough to beat CC, then you probably don't care about any of the upsides of Lunar Abigail because you're good enough at the game to simply realize that Shadow Abigail is simply better.

Lunar Abigail is a good newbie-friendly option, but it's locked behind a super late-game boss that no new player is ever going to face until they are good enough at the game to not need Lunar Abigail's newbie-friendliness anymore.

It just feels like flawed design to me. And I can't think of any solution that is realistic when considering how late into the development timeline this beta already is.

I and a bunch of others have pointed this out for months.  I have no idea why they made a mode specifically designed to help people who struggle with bosses and gated it behind the final boss, with the only possible reasoning being "you can just try to get around actually killing the boss if you want, a lot of people do it".  It seems too late now though.

 

[Dingle]

46 minutes ago, Lardee said:

I don't think this is true. Gestalt Abigail still gets hit and Gestalt Abigail can access AoE via team spirit skills. This incentivizes the player to learn team spirit which they can later use if they transition over to regular Abigail.

Plus, just getting used to fighting bosses in general will increase your ability to keep regular Abigail alive.

 

No, because what's the incentive to learn how to manage regular Abigail's survivability if you get the highest offense and highest defense in one form? The incentive to learn how to get really good at managing a frailer Abigail is the Cursed Vex. Without the carrot (Cursed Vex), there's no reason to learn Abigail to that extent other than style points.

Yeah.

I'd like to add that I'm not sure if Lunar is actually intended to be the "new player training" tree or not. This may be just our invention.

I'd have to look at the devs early notes, but I could have sworn the original intend for Lunar was a "boss killer specialist" alt playstyle.

Of course, this could have changed. I'm really not even sure what the current design intent of Lunar is, nothing quite makes sense for it.

[Debruh]

43 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I'd like to add that I'm not sure if Lunar is actually intended to be the "new player training" tree or not. This may be just our invention.

I'd have to look at the devs early notes, but I could have sworn the original intend for Lunar was a "boss killer specialist" alt playstyle.

Of course, this could have changed. I'm really not even sure what the current design intent of Lunar is, nothing quite makes sense for it.

It's supposedly a more aloof playstyle.

[Steorra]

The issue is simple. Lunar Abi need be buff.

[AliceShiki]

12 hours ago, Dingle said:

I'd like to add that I'm not sure if Lunar is actually intended to be the "new player training" tree or not. This may be just our invention.

I'd have to look at the devs early notes, but I could have sworn the original intend for Lunar was a "boss killer specialist" alt playstyle.

Of course, this could have changed. I'm really not even sure what the current design intent of Lunar is, nothing quite makes sense for it.

Yeah, I don't think it was made with the intent of being the newbie-friendly option, but that's the reality of the situation right now, and I don't think the devs are planning any major changes to Wendy at this point in the beta, so it's probably here to stay. Which essentially just makes Shadow Abi the better one.